During the last few months, a new viral trend has been circulating on TikTok that has caused a great stir among users. This is the phenomenon of NPC Live, which is called non-playable characters, that is to say, the characters that cannot be played in video games. Something similar to movie extras. Some content creators have started doing live streams on TikTok Live in which they impersonate these characters. They imitate them in exchange for money that other users send them in the form of TikTok gifts, a very lucrative dynamic for the most successful streamers: some boast of earning up to 6,000 euros for every hour of broadcasting.
The concept NPC describes secondary characters in video games that are not controlled by any player behind the screen, as they are part of the same programming of the game. They appear to give the appearance of companionship to the main player or with a specific objective, be it to communicate a message, provide information about the video game or interact with whoever is playing.
These non-playable characters generally have lines of dialogue and programmed movements that repeat over and over again, automatically, in short periods of time. They tend to have a small repertoire of limited phrases and gestures that they repeat in a loop. Every time a player approaches an NPC, the latter reproduces the exact same reaction. For example, you can find an NPC that only says "You must go to the right", or others whose only function is to walk around a fictional city while pretending to be talking on the phone or crossing a zebra crossing.
Some streamers have taken this type of character as a reference and created the new trend of imitating the robotic movements and phrases of NPCs. They do this over and over for hours in exchange for TikTok gifts (exchangeable for real money) that viewers give them. The audience of these streams can buy virtual rewards for a few cents from the live and send them instantly. Gifts appear on the screen, and when the creator sees them, they respond with a phrase, gesture, or action from their NPC repertoire.
These NPC tiktokers have a specific reaction assigned to each gift sent to them by viewers, as if it were an automated response. For example, every time someone sends creator PinkyDoll an ice cream, she says, “Ice cream, so good!” ('ice cream, how good!'); every time she receives a cowboy hat, she replies: “Yeeha, yes, you got me feeling like a cowgirl!” ('yeah, you make me feel like a jean!').
The phenomenon is a kind of adaptation of the reactions that some streamers have devised to thank – or, simply, to make visible to the followers – that they have received a new subscription while doing a live stream.
Some trends on TikTok may seem surprising. The truth is, content creators will do almost anything to monetize their online presence. And they've realized the profitability of live connections on TikTok, where users pay them for content, not the platform. Here's the key: the freebies that Tiktok makes available to creators can be turned into real money.
NPCs are like the street artist who juggles at the zebra crossing while the vehicles wait for the traffic light to turn green, or like the human statues that perform on the avenues of some cities, which make a robotic movement when a passerby throws a coin into his hat.
The difference is the stage. Tiktok NPCs don't act in front of a few drivers or pedestrians who are often in a hurry, don't have change, or are sick of seeing them. They are shown to a global audience. An unknown audience that doesn't mind spending a cent of a euro to see how a person in costume makes them have a good time. And from alms to alms some become rich.
The influencer PinkyDoll, who is considered a pioneer of this trend and calls herself the Queen of NPC, has more than one and a half million followers. He claims to have earned more than $7,000 (almost €6,500) in a single NPC broadcast. The data is impossible to compare, because TikTok does not provide information about this. But as strange as it may seem, repeating phrases like “Lovely rose” 800 times in a row is generating some pretty juicy profits for some very select tiktokers.
Attracted by this trend so viral and supposedly profitable, other creators have joined PinkyDoll and created their “NPC identities”, with their own phrases and gestures that they repeat depending on the reward they receive. Some streamers display a caption in some area of the screen during broadcasts, so that the audience can see the reactions they will get based on the gift they are sent. Usually, the more valuable the gift received, the more elaborate the response given in return: a longer sentence, a different movement, a dance instead of a sentence...
The concept of NPC is already part of the vocabulary of Generation Z, which describes as NPC people with little personality who limit themselves to following the mainstream.
Videos are also circulating on social networks in which users imitate the robotic movements of NPCs from well-known video games, such as The Sims or GTA (Grand Theft Auto). They go out and act like NPCs: parodying their walking, robotic movements, and even game glitches that leave comical situations, like characters waving at a lamppost or walking endlessly bumping into a wall .
The success of this concept and of the entire memetic culture that revolves around NPCs has resulted in the appearance of these live broadcasts, NPC Live. Lives of the most famous NPCs can have thousands of viewers and sometimes receive more than 400 roses in a row. When this happens, it means that the streamer must repeat the phrase associated with that gift as many times as they receive it, even if they have to say “Ice cream, so good!” 400 times in a row.
